


What Hath Night to Do With Sleep?

by YouLookGoodInLeather



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst and Porn, Assassin!Azriel, BDSM, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Blood Kink, Blood and Gore, Dark, Different magic system, Hate Sex, Human Revolution Era, Humiliation, Injury Kink, It's a huge fucking mess steeped in angst, Knifeplay, Love/Hate, M/M, Major Character Injury, Mutual Pining, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining, Rough Sex, Switching, Unhealthy Relationships, Violent Sex, dom!cassian, scars kink, sub!Azriel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2019-02-07 05:30:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12834321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YouLookGoodInLeather/pseuds/YouLookGoodInLeather
Summary: The war between the High Fae and those who would liberate the humans is drawing to a close, thanks to the High Fae's seemingly immortal assassin, Azriel. Yet the capture of this assassin by the Night Court's weapon might prove the cause's one chance of survival.But Cassian does not care about that.All he cares about is destroying the assassin who was idiotic enough to fall in love.All Azriel cares about is being destroyed.





	1. [I] Awake

**Author's Note:**

> someone somewhere asked for sub!Azriel with dom!Cassian and this was by no means how that was supposed to end up but *table flips*

_‘But when you lie dead_

_No one will notice later or feel sad_

_Because you gathered no sprays from the roses_

_Of the Pierian Muses_

 

_Once lost in Hades’ hall_

_You will be homeless and invisible -_

_Another shadow flittering back and forth_

_With shadows of no worth’_

 

****\- Sappho** **

* * *

 

They do not have to hunt The Assassin.

He comes to them.

They should not be surprised, for he has been hunting in this area for months now. They know this not from witnessing it, but from the stories seeping through the forest, of refuges burned to the ground, towns laid to waste by a single hand.

The spectre who was once only the figure of distant myths and ghost tales became local. He stepped closer, and with it they braced themselves; Most prepared for death, but not them.

They have their own weapon, and with it, they intend to strike back.

Yet all their plans fall by the wayside when The Assassin encounters their weapon quite by chance, happening upon it deep within the woods. The Weapon strikes into him a moment of hesitation. Later, the question of ‘why?’ is speculated upon by many, but Cassian knows the answer just from the look of their captive.

The Weapon wears upon his head a face of perfect proportion and enchantment. His smiles are the kind to undo maidens in mere minutes. He moves with ease through the world like the steady blade he is becoming in more than just charm, cutting through the hearts of others without so much as noticing.

Cassian knows this, because he’s felt it too, felt what it was to look upon The Weapon and feel yourself undone without so much as a battle. He has only to look at The Assassin, as he is led away for questioning, to see that same look upon his face as he has worn countless times when looking at the other.

He hates him for this reflection. Hates him for the fact that he dares covet someone so beyond the both of them. Without his knowing, they have a kinship, and Cassian despises him for the unconscious company. He spends the first night held warm by the passing arms of his open lover Nesta, but his thoughts lie elsewhere, back in a cell with a man being beaten bloody for secrets. He half envies the torturer, half feels the beating himself.

Neither of them will ever confess to the source of their downfall, of that, he is certain.

 

» Φ «

 

He does not have to look upon his unwelcome companion for six months. What passes for The Assassin in that time, he doesn’t know; torture, he assumes, though his emerging appearance would indicate the facts to be to the contrary.

Azriel - for so The Assassin is named - comes out from darkened cells and floggings looking brighter and rosier than before. Still his countenance betrays near no expression, but gone is the hollowness of his eyes, the gaunt shadows of his cheeks. He flanks the shoulder of The Weapon, Rhysand, with the loyal joy of a well trained dog. In this, he is closer to him than Cassian has ever been, despite being deemed a ‘friend’ and ‘brother’ by The Weapon.

Envy sickens him. If he did not hate the assassin before, he would now.

But this time, he is not alone in his outrage. Those who have lost loved ones and friends to the unyielding blade of The Assassin protest too, yell vulgarities at him on the streets, but to no avail. The governing forces of the Night Court have ruled The Assassin to be ‘essential’ if they and the rest of the human revolution are to win the war. So what if Azriel once fought for the High Fae nobility, those who would exterminate their kind forever more? He is a necessary evil, they say. And more importantly, he is _their_ assassin now.

How did his loyalties change so drastically? Most of their court doubt the change entirely, whilst others think it is too temporary to be relied upon. Only Cassian knows it to be anything but. He has to watch by sun and moonlight each pining glance The Assassin gives his former enemy, The Weapon, each moment he steps up to defend him out of adoration. There is a naivety and purity about his passion for Rhysand that puts Cassian in mind of a child, one without the bitterness and self-consciousness that haunts his own.

In the beginning, he thinks he watches them because he is jealous of Azriel.

In the beginning, things aren’t so complicated.

 

» Φ «

 

At every opportunity, he insults him.

There is no end to Cassian’s hatred for The Assassin. He finds him pathetic, creeping, untrustworthy, dishonorable, a murderer. He tells him so day in and day out. When the time comes that Azriel is appointed the official trainer of the troops, and Cassian somehow becomes his underling, his _student_ , he makes use of the intimacy. He torments him during lessons, after class, at every council meeting.

Somewhere along the way - though they do not say it - they acknowledge where it stems from.

The Assassin bites back. He is not like Cassian, not all fire and violent bodies, but rather ice and darkness and a quiet surge that strikes when the moment is ripe. He endures the other’s indiscretions with an ancient patience, but when he does strike back, he makes an art of it. Cassian storms away seething, face scarlet, heart racing, and jerks himself off in some private corner to release the tension.

Somewhere along the way, he started wanting The Assassin.

Men like them, men who dare desire other men, do not talk of such things in public. Theirs is language of subtle glances, gazes held too long and directed to areas that speak of longing. It is a lexis Cassian has employed long enough to know what is really meant behind the scathing remarks, the cold glares aimed his way. He knows it well enough to be unable to deny that he responds in kind, though with his own furious brand of yearning.

He does not expect it to come to anything. He sees every day how Azriel gazes off at Rhysand, not with angry desire, but with a pure affection worthy of high poetry, of religious declarations. Just like with The Weapon, with The Assassin, he never expects to be touched. Instead, he buries himself in Nesta, in passing soldiers on visits from other courts, in bar boys and fellow soldiers.

He does not expect to find The Assassin drinking at the bar. He does not expect to find himself joining him, to find the two of them talking to one another in words that barely bother to be insults.

They both notice others paying them attention. Their words grow more colourful, laced with deeper fury that they aim at one another but originates from out there, until they are vowing to bring about the other’s death. They storm outside putting on coats and jackets and damning one another to the shadows, because so many eyes still stay watching.

‘I need to change first’ is Cassian’s excuse for heading to his chambers. The Assassin nearly breaks the ruse, laughing, calling him a ‘dandy’. He tells him to go fuck himself, and they proceed in silence.

His room is right next to Rhysand’s in the tavern the cause has re-purposed as a barrack. They both can hear him from outside, laughing with Feyre, his charming lover. They both eavesdrop for a moment, drinking in that laughter like water in a desert.

Then Cassian pushes through his door, and they are lost to one another.

 

  


	2. Defamation

They can still hear the others’ laughter even as they lock onto one another and push back against the wall. At first Cassian is caged, but he is fueled by that first born rage, and flips them.

Azriel’s head cracks back against the plaster like a whip. They can hear the concerned murmurs of the other through the brickwork. Instead of protesting, Az pulls him closer. Claims his lips, bites them. His breathing is heavy and labored, but it does little to deter him from fumbling with Cassian’s belt, zip, undergarments, reaching down to grope his cock.

The restrained, quieted emotions of The Assassin always struck him as those of a virgin. Cass hopes it is not kindness that draws him back to ask, “Want to slow down?”

The other shakes his head. Those burnt, calloused fingers of his fumble with his cock and pry it free, jacking it off in one hand in rough, brisk movements. “Don’t be gentle,” he instructs, half order, half whine. There is something new in his eyes and voice, a desperation that Cass once mistook for devotion. Up close, he knows it now to be hunger. A deprivation. Withdrawal.

The Assassin is seeking something, and he’d feel used were he not doing the exact same, maybe. He hopes this is just a using. To feel anything else for The Assassin would be a truly perverse kind of masochism. “Do I look fucking gentle?” He bites back, to cover any sensitivity he might have let slip.

“Underneath, yes,” Azriel says, too honest, too needing to bother with the mercy of lies. “Don’t treat me like that here. Treat me like filth. Treat me like the worst of my kind you have ever encountered, only good for being put to use for your pleasure.”

He says all that with the same earnest bluntness as he does his declarations of loyalty to Rhysand and the humans’ cause. He says it like there’s nothing to be ashamed of. He says it like he’s calling for the truth.

Cass slaps his hands away from his cock, away from his body. He seizes him by the hair and tips his head back, straining at his scalp to the point where the man is wincing. He makes the mistake of thinking he understands. “Is there any other way to treat you?” The snarl in his voice reads like a blessing to the man pinned beneath him. The Assassin smiles like he’s been promised divine redemption.

That should have been Cassian’s first warning.

 

» Φ «

 

Cassian slams The Assassin’s head down upon the floorboards with powerful limbs. As the other cries out, he grinds him further down beneath the heel of his riding boots. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, but there’s such a thrill to it that he feels electric. Like his muscles are singing.

Like destruction was what he was meant for all along.

“What are your safe words, little bitch?” He asks the man pinned beneath his foot.

“Safe words?” The Assassin grunts out, struggling to escape given how his wrists are tied behind his back.

“To make me stop.”

“I don’t want you to stop.”

“You might change your mind.”

“I won’t.”

It should be a second warning that he hasn’t a clue what safewords are, yet can demand such depravity in the bedroom. Cass is high on adrenaline and frustration though, so he ignores the brake lights and instead lays down the rules. “Red for stop. Amber for getting near to breaking point. Green for go. Got it?”

“I won’t change my mind.”

“Don’t,” He says, twisting his heel down harder into that sharp, pale jaw, “underestimate me.”

The second his trap relents, Azriel is quick to repent. He scrambles to his knees and pushes Cassian back onto his bed, crawling close to gain access to his lap. He finds his cock again, meets it with his lips, suckles like a babe. It’s with devotion that he licks and kisses and entreats him to the back of his throat, like a kind of worship. Cassian can’t look away.

He comes loudly, loud enough that next door, Rhys and Feyre giggle together. That alone sets off a fury in his stomach that has him ripping at the other’s hair, forcing him to take him in deeper as he ejaculates into his throat, making him gag. He won’t let go until Az swallows, body convulsing with the instinct to vomit. It’s raw enough to feel like hatred.

“Colour?” He asks when at last his fingers lessen.

“What?”

“Colour.” Az just rolls his eyes, in response to which Cassian boots him in the stomach, making him double over. “Answer, or I’ll assume it’s red.”

“Green.”

“Better. Now get up. I’m going to strip you.”

He is quick to disrobe The Assassin to nudity and regrets it. “From training?” He guesses, brushing his fingertips along the multitude of scars that decorate Az’s pale body. They come in all shapes and sizes, the regular cut of the blade, the swollen lumps of burns and whippings. Smaller circles dot his shoulders and abdomen in clusters, the kind you get from stubbing out cigarettes on flesh. And that’s not to mention the thick ropes of fire scorches curling up his arms, disfiguring his hands.

“No,” Azriel answers quietly. “From long before I became this.”

“From whom?” Cassian asks, though he shouldn’t. He knows it’s a mistake the second the other cups his jaw and smiles at him.

“A past lover.”

 

» Φ «

 

Cassian confirms for himself the immortality of The Assassin.

Each bruise he leaves on his cloistered skin pales and heals within a matter of minutes. When his nails dig in and leave behind heavy gashes, they stem and seal before he has the chance to really enjoy them. It is only when he goes deeper that he can leave anything of more than a few seconds of permanence, and it is only then that he can really get Azriel moaning. No matter how hard he hits, he always gets the answer ‘ _harder_ ’.

When they’re done, he’s the aching one, the exhausted one, his limbs feeling insufficient. The Assassin dresses whilst he reclines upon the sheets. “Next time,” Azriel tells him, buttoning up his shirt over dried blood and fading blooms of purple, “bring something sharp.”

Cassian would tell him there won’t be a next time, but even as he leaves, he knows it isn’t true.


	3. Arisen

The pining does not stop.

Cassian has to watch the near constant parade of longing glances The Assassin sends Rhysand’s way, regardless of the night their two bodies spent together. Though what they did would be enough to cause an unprecedented scandal - and likely get them both exiled if discovered - Azriel doesn’t even seem to register its passing. His gaze drifts over Cassian like water, making no note of him. It’s as if he is invisible.

Not that he can blame him (though of course, he still does). He knows what it is to be in The Weapon’s spotlight. Rhysand has this brightness, this warmth about him that inspires adoration. To know him is to be consumed by him. He is inspiring, fearless, reckless; A revolution in and of himself. Watching him is like staring at the sun, but Cassian knows well how even the burning of the retinas is not enough to force you to glance away.

He’s darkness too, just enough to think him possible. Yet all of it is masked away by the pretense of optimism so well maintained it is difficult to keep track of the cracks that rare show through.

“Why him?” Cassian asks one night, when they’ve stormed out of bars and streets again to fuck dirty in the crumpled sheets. Azriel shrugs on a shirt, distant in punishment for the other’s forgetting of sharp utensils.

“Because,” he answers without looking up from lacing his belt, “he believes in something.”

  
» Φ «

 

There comes a time when Rhys has to leave the encampment for training, alone with the general. Left behind, Cass and Az play at avoiding one another in spotlights. Behind closed doors, they’re growing bitter. This time, Cassian brought the knife.

  
He has the assassin forced up against the pillar of the chapel, locked up inside with empty pews and the barren altar. They’re not religious, but the night feels it, like there’s something metaphysical about the way Az is biting down upon his neck. It’s sharp and fucking painful, so he responds in kind: blade out, pressed right against the jugular. Az’s breath hitches in his throat. He smirks low like an animal. ‘You really think that would kill me?’ He drawls, a tease when others with more delicate judgments are not watching.

  
‘No,’ Cass fires back. ‘But it’ll fucking hurt, that’s for sure.’

  
‘True,’ The Assassin concedes. ‘Just because it heals, never takes away the pain.’

  
‘Obviously.’ Cass draws blood, crimson against the delicate pallor of the others near-death skin. ‘Else you wouldn’t get off on it.’

  
And he’s learned by now that harder doesn’t just mean press down, hit again, it really does mean strike like you’re going for the kill. He turns the other on his stomach against the stone and carves his back up like he’s bringing home a kill. He has to put his whole body into it, chest and shoulder and angled on his feet, driving stance, and only then is Az too busy cursing to tell him to dig deeper. He guts him, tearing into organs and jutting over spinal columns. When he withdraws, blood soaks the marbled floor.

  
It heals in exactly three minutes.

  
‘How’s it work?’ He asks the kneeling assassin, who bows his head and closes his eyes as he rubs his own erection.

  
‘The healing? No idea. Hybern did something to me. Pretty sure I’m not even illyrian anymore.’

  
‘Worth it though. I mean you can’t die and shit.’

  
‘Worth it?’ Az repeats, looking back at him. ‘Who says I ever wanted to live forever?’

  
He stands after too much silence, too much avoiding gazes and unspoken questions. They drag one another by half-removed clothing to the altar, discarding candlesticks and fabrics in their wake. They want hard cold surfaces, no distractions, no curtains. There’s nothing to hide when they’re fucking one another in the darkness; not from one another.

  
He bends The Assassin over and takes him once, twice, from behind, no lube, no nothing, and it fucking hurts. The bastard is bleeding, but of course its him so its not for long. It’s not for long that he’s panting, soon clambering up onto the stone and dragging Cassian breathless with him. Immortality apparently came with endless stamina. Cass is fit, he can run a mile and laugh and grin at the end of it without effort, but this is going to be the fucking death of him. This man - if he can be called that - is going to be the death of him.

  
He’s not as troubled by that idea as he should be.

  
Elbow caging the other’s neck against the altar, Cass fucks him up the ass with a knife buried in his shoulder, listening to him scream. Half the time its from pain, the rest asking him to go further. Begging for more, more hurt, more stimulation. He doesn’t know what to do. For the first time in his life, he’s lost for creativity in the bedroom. It feels like there's nothing left to do. It’s like The Assassin wants him to kill him.

 

» Φ «

 

When Rhys returns, he’s a whirlwind spectacle. He’s the last of his kind, a soul mage, a worker of the magic of the soul and isn’t he spectacular? They gather to watch him spin new tricks with flame, water, sparkle, spatter. Shadow and light bend to his will and kiss his fingertips. He’s learning faster every day.

But no soul mage is complete without a soul mate. Even simple Cassian, who is a man of steel and swords and basics knows that much, back from the days where soul mages swarmed the land and dominated every field of study and application. The plague didn’t take away that basic knowledge.

He is not so arrogant as to think himself that special chosen one.

Yet he watches on from corners as Rhys dances amongst his illusions, and sees how gentle Azriel watches on. Notices without wishing it how they join and laugh, part and perform for one another. How happy they seem just to know they are seen by one another. He thinks to himself how the world has a real fucked up sense of humor.

That night he goes to Nesta, who has no one better to spend the time with and drank too much to spend it alone. She has all his rage and more, returning it in dig-deep nails and insults to last the ages. He returns it for her where he can, but he left his rage back on a quiet chapel altar. She finds him dull. Tells him so right to his back.

‘What happened to you?’ She asks him, drinking from the remains of the bottle when they’ve fucked enough times for it to grow boring. Cassian answers with too much honesty,  
‘I don’t know.’


	4. Beaten

Az can pretend that they’re not systematically desecrating the entire encampment, but it’s showing through in training. Each morning when the ex-assassin is drilling them through maneuvers, stances, technique, he is always hardest on Cassian. It starts out subtle, and everyone thinks it deserved; after all, they’ve all witnessed how often the pair of them bicker. All Az does is reprimand him every so often, tell him he’s doing it wrong again- but that’s in the beginning.

Now, even those who’d gladly see Cass dead are whispering behind their backs. Each lesson Az barely leaves his side, not to sneak glances or kisses, but to criticize him. He never stands right, always leaves his guard flawed, has too many openings. The rest of the class proceeds undisturbed as over and over, Cassian is adjusted and tested. By the end of each session, he is even more exhausted than he is furious.  
  
‘I’m not fucking you any more,’ he tells The Assassin, holding him back one day after class. ‘Not if you’re going to take whatever the fuck is wrong with you out on me in front of everyone. They’re going to start wondering why you hate me so much.’

‘They think I hate you?’ Azriel asks, looking genuinely surprised. Even after hours of demonstrating swordplay, he has not a hair out of place, his skin immaculate compared to the sweaty mess of Cassian.

‘Well yeah, you don’t exactly hide it.’

Too long, The Assassin looks at him. There’s a hardness to his brow and a softness to his eyes that is contradictory in the worst kind of way, a discrepancy that Cassian cannot read. This whole thing would be a hell of a lot easier if Az wasn’t so buried in himself. If he’d just fucking… talk about it. But Cassian has never asked, and he’s pretty sure he’ll never be able to. He’s not sure he wants to know the answers they never speak of.  
‘I don’t hate you,’ is all Azriel says, nodding once before walking away from the conversation. To him, that’s the end of it.

To Cassian, not so much.

The bastard should hate him. He’s done things to his body that he reserves for his worst enemies alone. True, all has been by The Assassin’s request, but you can’t do that kind of thing to a person without garnering resentment. Cass only agrees to it because he’s pretty sure he hates him. There’s an urge that kicks into his bones every time he looks at the enemy-turned-ally, a kind of itch that longs for sweet destruction. He wants to break the immortal piece by piece until there’s nothing left.

And most of all, he wishes he would look at him for more than a fraction of a second.

Why should Rhys be the only one deserving of those eyes?

 

» Φ «

 

Another class, another grilling. Cass can barely think straight him limbs ache so much from endless striking and posturing. Az has partnered himself up with him, and he’s learning fast for the first time just why his career as a glorified murderer went so well. He barely gets two moves in before he’s landing on his ass in shame. ‘Again,’ Az always says, barking out instructions to the onlookers.

Once, Cassian was known as the best in the camp, best fighter, best brawler, best punch. Now, people are watching him and laughing. They laze about poking at one another whilst he is beat down over and over into the ground by a man who makes sword-fighting look like a dance. It would be beautiful were he not being so humiliated.

All the while, Az is a creature of stone. His facial muscles do not move, do not so much as wince when Cass lands his first hit on his side. The blade cut through his leathers, drawing blood, but he doesn’t even seem to notice. Cass wonders if it turns him on, getting hit like this, here. Imagines doing what he does to him in the shadows here before all the fuckers looking down on him right now.

He lets himself get distracted; He’s on his ass again in seconds.

‘Focus,’ Azriel huffs, and it’s just breathless enough to give Cassian his answer. The Assassin might never show a damn thing, but he’s thinking it too. He’s picturing their bodies both on this floor, and in that world, Cassian’s not the one staring up at the other.

‘Fuck you,’ he bites back, hot and angry from the snickers echoing around him. Az strikes him over the head with the wooden stick he wields for practice (Cass won’t heal from the wounds he lands, inside or out).

‘Is that anyway to talk to your teacher?’ Azriel drawls, mocking, heavy-lidded eyes, thick lashes. His mouth is curled in a sickening kind of smirk that makes Cass was to fuck those lips so bad.

‘You’re not my teacher.’

 

» Φ «

 

They wait until the rest of the class has filtered out. Afternoon allows them time to work on helping around the camp, gathering resources, cleaning, cooking, repairs, the works. Cassian’s supposed to be helping Nesta repair her leaking ceiling as he promised.

  
He doesn’t go to her. He waits.

They stand at opposite sides of the room, Az slotting back the practice swords into their holds, Cass bandaging his bleeding knuckles. Punching the bastard was a mistake. Fucker feels like he’s made out of marble. They busy their hands and eyes in silence, their ears waiting until the sound of the door clicking shut.

Cass goes to him, seizes him, hands locking into his now-too-long hair and yanking it backwards. ‘You look like a fucking girl like this,’ he tells him, because it’s true and he likes it too much. Likes looking at it during lessons and drinking and council meetings and thinking how its the perfect length now for gripping onto and pulling.  
  
‘Mad you keep getting defeated by someone who looks like a girl?’ Az fires back at him, resisting the pull on his scalp to finish putting away the last of the swords. Cass isn’t having it. He tugs him close and wraps an arm around his chest, reaching up to chokehold his throat.

‘ _Don’t_.’

‘Don’t what?’

‘Don’t look down on me,’ he hisses, fingers digging deep into the others windpipe and flesh. He’s done this before, killed people this way, but this man can’t die. Instead he rasps for air and spasms, survival instincts kicking in like a regular mortal but Cassian does not relent. He chokes him long past the point that anyone else could endure, but air or not the fucker keeps on ticking.

‘Who said-’ Az coughs when he’s released, neck black and blue but as always, healing. ‘Who said I’m looking down on you?’

‘Isn’t it obvious? It doesn’t need to be said.’

‘I’m not doing it to shame you,’ Az snarls out, but it’s a half snarl, because he’s getting in the headspace and already he’s staying down on his knees. Good, Cass thinks, going to him and running fingers through his long dark hair. He likes him best like this. Likes him too much always. ‘I’m doing it to stop you getting killed.’

‘And you care why?’ Cass asks before he can stop himself. It’s one of those questions that has one of those answers he doesn’t want to hear, no matter how it’s answered. He doesn’t want to know what’s going on here, whatever this is that’s crackling between them like rotted leaves. He just wants to forget about it all and let them both burn.

Az bows his head, leaning into the hand within his hair. He answers with too much honesty,

‘I don’t know.’


	5. Fall'n

Some backstory then (for Cassian does so love to throw the past in Az’s face).  
Rhys and Cass, the Night Court, and Day and Dawn and Summer, they all are fighting to aid the human revolution, where humans and lesser fae alike war to free themselves from slavery. The high fae elitists who oppose this stand united under Hybern’s banner. Hybern is the king for whom Azriel used to work.

How he came to work for him, Cassian does not know. Perhaps this is less backstory, and more the basis of the hours he spends wondering what the hell goes through that bastard’s brain. How did he come to kill and slaughter for a man who sought to oppress his own species? For illyrians were considered just as base as other lesser fae by Hybern, and he’d enslave them to if he had his way. Cass knows The Assassin to be a masochist, but that seems ridiculous.

As if the things they’d done together were in any capacity normal.

Normally, Cass is able to dismiss these thoughts as none of his business, as irrelevant musing for people who actually care. Now though, everyone is asking those same old questions again: Why is The Assassin fighting for them?  
And will he keep their secrets safe now that Hybern has captured him?

It happened who knows how. He was off with Rhysand, guarding him during diplomatic trades with Autumn, when something went wrong. Cass has heard all kinds of stories - tales of incest, cannibalism, Azriel serenading them all with the piano - but all they know for sure is that Azriel is gone and they think the enemy has him. Most assume this is all part of his plan, to gather information then to return to his original master. Rhys insists he’s more than that, better than that. That he would never betray them.

He wishes he didn’t, but Cassian agrees with him. He’s seen how the Assassin worships Rhysand. Those looks alone assure him that there is nothing on this planet that could cause him to betray the man he pines after. It is strange, but he feels no jealousy when others come to comfort Rhysand, the man who endured the cannibals and incest and piano playing. Instead, rage rips through his organs whenever Rhys laments the loss of the other, whenever he listens to Rhys’ promises to value him better when they get him back.

He doesn’t know the first thing about Azriel. Does he know how he longs for the tearing of his muscles? Does he lie awake at night recalling the sound of his moans when Cass finally fucks him, unable to delay because his cock is in more agony than even a dissembled Azriel. Can Rhys really think he has any right to miss him when he doesn’t understand how fucked up that bastard is? He is missing a fragment of the monster, not the image whole.

Cass has seen it all, and he doesn’t want him to come back. He’s not sure what will happen if he does, but he knows it’s not what he had planned out for his life. He’s supposed to marry Nesta, chase after Rhysand all his life, become a general. Falling in love with a traitor was never on the table.

‘Why do you look so miserable?’ Rhysand asks him one night over cards, when they’re passing the time till they can go search by the safety of daylight again. He’s only in the search party so he can leave the bastard to rot if he finds him.

‘Because you care,’ Cass admits, half drunk, half jaded. He knows the first person Azriel will go to is the other, not him, and he loathes him for it.

‘Oh Cass,’ Rhys says with a fond smile and a ruffling of his hair. ‘You jealous idiot. I care about you too.’

 _That’s not what I meant,_ Cass would say, but how can he? He hasn’t known his own meaning for weeks now.

 

» Φ «

 

He’s picking lichen off of the ancient dilapidated fountain one late evening when from the woods, Azriel comes astumbling. His whole body, all his attire, are soaked in blood. The wounds are only half healed, which Cassian knows means they must have been… Cauldron. He can’t even begin to imagine, though his mind, cruel thing, does its best.

He is about to run to him when Rhysand beats him to it. Who knows where The Weapon came from, but one second Cass is alone, the next, he’s watching the love of his life grab onto another. It’s a problem that he knows which way round he’s referring to them.

Because he used to be the best fighter and he’s friends with Mor, their general, he gets to come in on the sick bay tent where they take Azriel. He watches on as the Assassin heals slow, real slow, raving nonsense all the while. ‘Did you tell them anything?’ Mor says, all the while, shaking him by the shoulders. She looks like she might be sick, but always she is so serious.

Eventually, The Assassin becomes coherent. ‘We need to run,’ he tells her, his voice like nails on brick, hell on fire. ‘We need to go.’

 

» Φ «

 

Come near midnight, the others are all preparing. The plan is to relocate come daybreak, so they are all off packing and warning and comforting. They’ve built a lot here, would stay to defend it, but Azriel is insistent that they run. He seems to know of something coming, and for once, no one dares question him.

Only Cassian remains in the room, a drafty, ghostly thing, with a rickety bed and a window that doesn’t shut. Az is half feverish and shaking on the sheets. Beside him, all Cass can do is watch.

Those dark night eyes catch his, The Assassin registering the sight of him for the first time since his return. He bolts up to a sitting position. Reaches forward, grabs him. Draws him close onto the bed.

They kiss through the blood and sweat and the fever-hot-cold sweating, though Cass can taste death on him and he’s not sure this is safe, not sure this is right (whatever the hell that means). He didn’t realise how fucking worried he’d been up until now. It floods his system, a violent relief that rocks his sensibility and capsizes the whole damn thing entirely. He can’t believe he nearly lost him. He knows worse that he never even had him. But he wants him. He wants him desperately.

Lying on their sides on the bedsheets, there’s none of their usual grandeur. No knives, no swearing- their sex is speechless, the air punched by grunts and wretched breaths alone. Cass takes him from behind, reaching over to grip his waist and bruise the muscle of his abdomen. He’s so cold, like ice, pressed against his chest and cock and shivering.

‘Colour?’ He asks, because the other isn’t talking. He gets know answer. He rarely does on the first asking. ‘I told you, I’ll assume it’s red if you don’t answer. Colour, asshole.’

Azriel mumbles something unintelligible. ‘Colour,’ Cass spits out again.

‘Red.’

‘What?’

‘Red.’

He half can’t believe it, but he hears it and he stops himself. He draws back, sitting up and disbelieving. Az hasn’t moved. He’s lying on his side, curled up, facing away from him. Shaking like a leaf. Shaking like he might break in an instant.

‘What did he do to you?’ Cassian asks, finding himself afraid and hating it.

Azriel doesn’t answer. All that happens is Cass can hear him crying.


	6. [II] Reign

_‘My ventricles, my sternum and stomach._  
_The least glimpse, and my lost voice stutters,_  
_Refuses to come back_

_Because my tongue is shattered. Gauzy_  
_Flame runs radiating under_  
_My Skin; all that I see is hazy,_  
_My ears all thunder._

_Sweat comes quickly, and a shiver_  
_Vibrates my frame. I am more sallow_  
_Than grass and suffer such a fever_  
_As death should follow._

_But I must suffer further, worthless_  
_As I am …'_

**\- Sappho**

* * *

 

  
‘My first master was my father,’ he says. ‘He detested me for my lacking. I wasn’t right. Wasn’t of the right breeding, right temperament, right interests. When I argued with my brothers, he took my hands and roasted them in the fireplace.’ Catching Cassian’s look, he shakes his head. ‘He was not my first lover. But he did give me my first scars. The rest came later.

When I was fourteen, he killed my mother. I was to help discard the body. I went out into the snow and dug a grave, and that was where he found me. Hybern took the spade and dug it deeper where I could not. He asked me what had passed, and I told him. He told me he would free me. Together, we buried my mother, and left her deep within the snow. He left, and I did not see him again for three days.

I don’t know how, but he took me from my father. I didn’t know who he was then, that he ruled a kingdom of his own. He took me to his land and took me in as his own. Before, I had been uneducated. He brought me tutors, language, numbers, music. It was he himself though that taught me fencing. We’d train every evening, and then he’d sit and listen to my recitals on the piano.’

Cassian does not want to hear what comes next, but he cannot not leave. The Assassin has come down with a fever, and it is him who’s been left in charge of ensuring he does not sicken further. Besides, it was he who asked the question. Now, he has to pay the price of hearing the answer.

‘He didn’t touch me for a year.’ The Assassin’s smile is sad, reflective. ‘But by the time I turned fifteen it was customary to bend me over the stool and take me as he pleased. I protested at first.’ Looking out of the window, his fingers are in his hair, braiding the strands into plaits and twisting them. ‘But I came to enjoy it. I’d always preferred men - one of the reasons my father seemed to loathe me - but now I was not only allowed to touch them, but made to. Once I was used to it, my body responded to it. He taught me what it was to pleasure.’

‘I don’t want to know this,’ Cassian says. Azriel continues,

‘I grew up, but he didn’t grow tired of me. I fell in love with him. I think I loved him in the beginning, in a child’s kind of way. He’d saved me from my father, and on the whole, he was more gentle. He let me live beyond the confines of four walls. Taught me about the world around me. He even let me learn how to fly, though it was tricky. I was terrified for years. I still get nervous.’ Dropping his hold upon his hair, he looks over at the other. ‘I don’t hate him.’

‘You should do,’ Cass tells him.

‘Why? For using me?’ Az returns to gazing out of the window. ‘But I don’t want to serve any other purpose. I like it. I like being used.’ As Cassian stands, he keeps going, as if stopping might be painful. ‘It’s why I stayed here. Rhysand could use me so much better. All of you could. And I want to be used by him. He’s got the better cause.’

‘You could do more than just be used,’ Cassian says, not sure whether he’s outraged or pathetic. Both, he thinks. ‘You’ve killed so many people. You could kill a thousand more. You don’t need to be some implement of others.’

Shaking his head, Azriel just smiles sadly. ‘I guess you do not know me.’

‘I do,’ Cass says, because the worst part is he is starting to understand. ‘I just wish that things were better.’

‘And you care why?’ Azriel asks, as he once did. Somehow, here the question feels far crueler, because Cass has never been one to hide his emotions, even when he’s angry.

‘Because you deserve it,’ he tells him. ‘You deserve better.’

It turns his stomach to hear The Assassin laugh at him. ‘No,’ he says. ‘I do not.’

 

» Φ «

 

Drunk, Cassian shoves Rhysand backwards. ‘You don’t understand a fucking thing,’ he yells at him, or maybe he’s crying and he croaks it like a loser. He’s not sure. His blood’s alcohol by now and he’s not sure where he is, but the world isn’t standing proper and the streets are spinning.

‘What do you mean?’ Rhys implores, with no idea where this came from. Cass doesn’t know either. All he knows is he’s hitting him on the chest and grabbing him by the collar.

‘He needs us,’ he tells him, voice thick, tears ready. ‘He deserves so much better.’

‘Who?’ A perplexed Weapon asks, trying and failing to steady him. Cass smiles, no warmth in the expression. Voice cracks.

‘Your soulmate.’

**Author's Note:**

> Title (+ several chapter titles) from Milton's _Paradise Lost_


End file.
